Former Champion Returns To Oklahoma City For 2024 World Livestock Auctioneer Championship

As professional auctioneers travel to Oklahoma City's Stockyards City for the 2024 World Livestock Auctioneer Championship, many are vying to be named this year's champion.

News 9 spoke with a former champion to get to know what to expect ahead of the championship, and to catch a glimpse into the life of cattle auctioneering.

Kyle Shobe, the 2010 World Livestock Auctioneer Champion, is a Montana resident who said Oklahoma is always special to him.

"Always loved Oklahoma, this is a special place for me," Shobe said. "This is where I won the world championship back in 2010... I'm just an old has-been now, but it's a special place."

Auctioneering is a profession which requires an intense amount of speaking skill and word flow control, but Shobe said he wanted to do what he does his whole life.

"I grew up wanting to do this," Shobe said. "I was I was three, four or five years old saying rubber baby buggy bumper and other tongue twisters."

As for those interested in becoming an auctioneer, Shobe said there are multiple ways to pick up the craft.

"There's auction schools around the country where you can actually go and kind of learn the foundational understanding of what it takes to become an auctioneer," Shobe said. "There's YouTube videos and all kinds of things, I grew up getting to sell right alongside my dad, getting to hear him and other auctioneers in our area."

Shobe said the championship series began with 108 auctioneers, and as of Friday morning, they are down to 30.

"The top 30 will compete for this title, and they'll sell live cattle," Shobe said. They'll bring back the top 10 for a final round... and they'll be judged on things like clarity, their rhythm, their poise and their professionalism, and then are they a good representative of the livestock and agriculture industry."

For more information about the 2024 World Livestock Auctioneer Championship, click here.